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An Author Attracts Unlikely Allies

In 1974 Thomas Nagel published “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?,” a short essay arguing that the subjective experience of consciousness — what philosophers call the “qualia” — could not be fully reduced to the physical aspects of the brain.

That essay framed a landmark challenge to the materialist view of the mind that was then prevailing and helped cement Mr. Nagel’s reputation as one of the most incisive and imaginative of contemporary philosophers.

But since the late October release of his latest book, “Mind and Cosmos,” reviewers have given Mr. Nagel ample cause to ponder another question: What is it like to be an eminent (and avowedly atheist) philosopher accused of giving aid and comfort to creationist enemies of science?

Advocates of intelligent design have certainly been enthusiastic, with the Discovery Institute crowing about Mr. Nagel’s supposed “deconversion” from Darwinism. The book, subtitled “Why the Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False,” has also drawn appreciative notice from conservative publications that might normally disdain Mr. Nagel’s liberal writings in moral and political philosophy.

So far Mr. Nagel, a professor of philosophy and law at New York University and a fellow of the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences, has not responded publicly to his critics, and declined to answer questions about the book and its reception submitted via e-mail. But some of his supporters paint him as the victim of an ideological pile-on.

“He is questioning a certain kind of orthodoxy, and they are responding in the way the orthodox respond,” said Alva Noë, a philosopher at the University of California, Berkeley, who gave the book a rare positive, if not uncritical, notice on NPR’s Web site.

To others, however, the vigorous response reflects the fact that even the best-supported science, empirically speaking, is still enmeshed in unsettled metaphysical questions.

“Nagel always makes formidable arguments, even when he’s wrong,” said Jim Holt, the author of “Why Does the World Exist?,” a recent best seller about efforts by philosophers and cosmologists to explain the origins of the universe. “Here he’s pointing out that there are important things in the world we live in, as opposed to the scientific image of the world, that science pretends to have a grasp of but doesn’t.”

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The philosopher Thomas Nagel of N.Y.U.Credit
Janet Malcolm

“Mind and Cosmos,” weighing in at 128 closely argued pages, is hardly a barn-burning polemic. But in his cool style Mr. Nagel extends his ideas about consciousness into a sweeping critique of the modern scientific worldview, which he calls a “heroic triumph of ideological theory over common sense.” Consciousness, meaning and moral value, he argues, aren’t just incidental features of life on earth, but fundamental aspects of the universe. Instead of random evolution Mr. Nagel sees the unfolding of a “cosmic predisposition.”

Such ideas are anathema to modern evolutionary theorists. Mr. Nagel calls for an entirely new kind of science, one based on what he calls “natural teleology” — a tendency for the universe to produce certain outcomes, like consciousness, but without any help from a Godlike agent.

To many reviewers, however, including some who have themselves been critical of efforts to find Darwinian explanations for all aspects of human behavior, Mr. Nagel’s own arguments fail to grapple with some well-established scientific facts.

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After all, they argue, the evolutionary record shows plenty of lineages moving from complex structures to simpler ones, to say nothing of extinction — both of which throw cold water on the notion of teleology. As for Mr. Nagel’s “untutored reaction of incredulity” (as he himself puts it in the book) that random evolution could have produced conscious beings capable, say, of doing science and philosophy in the 3.8 billion years since life on earth began, some point out that he fails to consider the vast size and age of the universe and the likelihood that consciousness might have emerged somewhere, at some time.

“I wouldn’t criticize him for not knowing a lot of details about evolutionary biology,” said Elliott Sober, a philosopher of biology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who was highly critical of “Mind and Cosmos” in Boston Review. But Mr. Nagel’s arguments, he continued, are marred by flawed reasoning about probability: “He sees the origins of life and consciousness as remarkable facts which had to have had a high probability of happening. I don’t buy that.”

The fiercest criticism, however, has come from people who fault Mr. Nagel not just for the specifics of his arguments but also for what they see as a dangerous sympathy for intelligent design.

“The book is going to have pernicious real-world effects,” said Mr. Leiter, a philosopher at the University of Chicago, who has frequently chided Mr. Nagel on his widely read blog. He added, “It’s going to be used as a weapon to do damage to the education of biology students.”

It’s a charge Mr. Nagel has met with before. In 2009 he caused a furor when he praised Stephen C. Meyer’s “Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design” in The Times Literary Supplement of London. This came hot on the heels of Mr. Nagel’s 2008 scholarly article criticizing the federal court decision, in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, banning the teaching of intelligent design in public school biology classes. (“The political urge to defend science education against the threats of religious orthodoxy, understandable though it may be,” Mr. Nagel wrote, “has resulted in a counter-orthodoxy, supported by bad arguments.”)

Mr. Nagel’s depiction of a universe “gradually waking up” through the emergence of consciousness can sound oddly mystical — the atheist analytic philosopher’s version of “spiritual, not religious.” And even some readers who admire Mr. Nagel’s philosophical boldness see a very fuzzy line between his natural teleology and the creator God of theists like the Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga (who reviewed Mr. Nagel’s book favorably in The New Republic, throwing more red meat to his detractors).

In his conclusion Mr. Nagel declares that the present “right-thinking consensus” on evolution “will come to seem laughable in a generation or two.” But few of his colleagues seem to see much sign that a radical paradigm shift is imminent, let alone necessary.

“It’s perfectly fair game for philosophers to say scientists are wrong about stuff,” Mr. Sober said. “Everything depends on whether the arguments are good.”

“Tom is a provocative philosopher, and his book will interest people,” he continued. But when it comes to changing actual science, he said, “it’s a hiccup.”

A version of this article appears in print on February 7, 2013, on Page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: An Author Attracts Unlikely Allies. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe